Pokémon. Yes. It is the universe of dreams for any boy or girl. Verily, a strong subset of tropers were smitten by its imaginative world, drawn in by the rich variety in Seedot, small Sunkern filled with ultimate potential of some sort. Verily, any emotional biologist's fingers would tingle and eyes would water, tears of blood would be cried at the sight of the beauty of such an open world of horizons that stretch out beyond one's imagination.

Follow me, my dear tropers, and knockblackwhite black thyselves out.

</Fawriel>

OK, seriously, what's the deal?

We all have fond memories of the Pokémon world, and many of us have maintained or rediscovered our fandom over the years. But increasingly, we find the official materials... lacking. Sometimes the Pokédex entries are absurd- particularly egregiously, Onix is apparently less dense than water.

Mostly, we're lacking pretty much every non-battle related bit of information about the world. What kind of nests do Nidoran build? Do wild Charizard care for their young? Who pays to operate Pokémon Centers? Realistically, are any species declared too dangerous to legally train?

And we are...?

Hopefully, creating or collecting the pieces of Fanon to fill in the gaps, making a more coherent and immersive world.

Obviously, creating an "offical" fanon compilation is neither desired nor possible. Many existing fan interpretations are contradictory (Predators? The Char tailflame?), and even the official media has multiple continuities.

How to handle this?

It's probably better to focus on a few topics at a time; once the post on one topic reaches a mature state, another topic or two (depending on breadth) may be opened.

If this approach doesn't work well, we scrap it.

So, we first need to decide where to start. Bulbasaur biology and Pallet Town geography? Or open at a higher level?

Weights... How come they don't weigh as much when they go into the ball? Where does the mass go?

There's two possible explanations for this: The Special explanation and the anime explanation.

According to Pokemon Special, the 'mons are shrunken to fit the space inside of the ball. Presumably, the tech on pokeballs are capable of screwing with mass and density to shrink them while reducing their weight at the same time.

From what we see in the anime, they explain it by making the 'mons apparently be converted into energy when the enter the pokeball. That raises its own problems (the conversion of mass to energy is enormous. Remember E=MC^2? The "C" is the speed of light).

One possible idea I have is that it works on the same principle as the box system. The 'mons are converted into data, which is stored in the pokeballs, which are actually something like powerful computer capsules that have a calm environment programmed in for the 'mons. When you release them, then the digimonAelita the pokémon is rematerialized from the data.

Also up for debate is just how insulated a pokéball is to outside stimuli.

We've seen them spontaneously break out in the anime, and Wobbuffet's tendency to intrude on conversations and randomly agree with people is even canon to the games.

They're not too shocked by whatever situation they materialize into — though admittedly if you got into half the crazy crap the protagonists of any segment of the franchise do, chances are nothing would make you blink more than once.

They seem to correctly hear any commands given as the pokéball is being thrown, but before it opens. They also appear to anticipate being called on, already in a psyched-up state of asskicking readiness with rare exceptions.

Just a thought, but people eat pokemon right? I remember reading a bit of fluff somewhere in Pearl about a legend how when humans eat a pokemon they should through it's bones back to return to the earth.

So are there like Tauros and Miltank farms? Are Torchics kept in tiny cages and breed like crazy to fit an insane demand for chicken?

So, address Pokéballs early on, and determine edibility of each species?

Poison types, where edible at all, no doubt require a careful chef.

Though it should be noted that in the "main game" canon where eating Pokémon is mentioned, Pokémon also tend to be portrayed less intelligently than in the anime and Mystery Dungeon games. How do we avoid Moral Dissonance here?

Dangerous mons are show canon, at least. I heard Mystery Dungeon had more bestial opponents in addition to the civilized ones, but I haven't played those games.

Still, any intelligent members of a species would seem to preclude eating any of them.

^^^ "Competitive-style" players also bring up an issue to address. Realistically, perhaps training animals as battlers itself isn't objectionable, given the care and attention they seem to receive, but catching/breeding them by the hundreds and abandoning them in a box/chucking them into the wild seems like pretty clear animal cruelty.

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